Chapter 3 - That's Not Where It Was
When I opened my eyes, a nurse I hadn't seen before came through the door with a bundled baby in her arms.
"Here she is," she said.
Marcus stood up fast. His face did something I had never seen it do—it went soft all over, every hard line gone.
"Want to hold your daughter?" the nurse asked.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I do."
She set the baby in his arms. The blanket loosened as he shifted her, and the top of one shoulder slipped free.
For one perfect second, he smiled down at her.
Then he stopped. Every part of him went still.
"Marcus?"
Nothing.
His face had gone the color of the bedsheet.
The nurse caught it too. "Sir? Are you feeling lightheaded?"
He kept staring at the baby. Then, barely above a breath, he said, "No."
My stomach knotted. "No, what?"
He looked over at me. "No. That's impossible."
Something in his voice put a chill straight down the back of my neck.
The nurse frowned. "What's impossible?"
Marcus eased the blanket down farther. There was a faint reddish patch on the baby's right shoulder. He stared at it.
"The mark," he said.
I pushed myself upright, even though it felt like something tearing. "What about it?"
"It's on the wrong side. Our daughter's birthmark was on the left."
The nurse gave a small, careful smile. "Newborn skin changes a lot right after delivery. Redness can come up and fade—"
"No." His voice went sharp. "This is not the same mark."
The room suddenly felt too bright, all that white light coming off the walls.
"Marcus," I said quietly. "Tell me exactly what you saw. Before."
He turned to face me. "Dark oval. Left side. Right by her collarbone. I said it looked like a thumbprint in paint. You heard me say it."
I had. And I'd heard the nurse call it a birthmark.
I looked at the woman who'd carried her in. "You weren't in the delivery room."
"No," she admitted.
"Then who checked her down the hall?"
Her eyes flicked to the door. "Let me get your delivery nurse."
Marcus pointed at the tiny band around the baby's ankle. "Check that first."
The nurse read it out. My name was on it. Marcus's name. Our hospital number.
Everything matched.
That should have ended it. Instead, Marcus looked more frightened, not less.
"That band says she's yours," the nurse said carefully.
He shook his head. "I know what I saw."
"Give her to me," I said, holding out both arms. "Give her to me."
He crossed the room and laid her against my chest. She was warm. Impossibly small. Sleeping through every second of it.
Somehow that made it worse. She wasn't a mix-up or a mistake to me right then. She was somebody's daughter.
"Call the charge nurse," I said.
The nurse hesitated. "I'm sure once we look at the—"
"Now."
She left.
Marcus paced, dragging both hands down his face. "What if I'm wrong?"
I looked at the baby. "I hope you are."
"I stared right at it. The delivery nurse saw it too."
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"I know."
The baby made a tiny squeak and tucked her chin against me, and I hated that some part of me was afraid to hold her too tight.
